In Strange Woods - Claire Cray Page 0,67

swear I’ve missed you so much. I didn’t know what the feeling was, but I think I’ve been missing you all my life.”

James embraced him instinctively, and a shudder of emotion rolled through him. Beau was right. This moment alone was almost too enormous to take in. They had been missing each other, and now they’d found each other, and the undeniable sense of unity, completion, consummation, was like nothing he’d ever felt. It was primal. Miraculous.

“I’ve missed you too,” James said, gripping him tighter. “I didn’t know, but I knew something wasn’t right. I feel like maybe I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

Beau drew back just enough to frame James’s face in his hands, tears glittering on his thick black eyelashes. “I felt you out there, too. These past three months, I knew something was wrong. Pain inside like I’ve never felt. I was so down one night, I dreamed about jumping off a bridge.”

The shock of those words brought tears to James’s eyes, and he lowered his face in shame. But Beau grabbed him close again, squeezing him tight.

“It’s okay,” Beau whispered, stroking the back of his head. “I know. I’m sorry, James. I’m sorry you lost them, and I’m sorry you’ve been alone. But you haven’t been, really. And you’re not anymore.”

James couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried in someone’s arms, but being with Beau was like being with himself. There would be no hiding anything. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he managed to say through his tears. “Beau, I’m so glad you’re alive.”

“I am alive.” Beau gently rubbed his back. “And so are you.”

James hugged him closer for a moment and then pulled back, brushing tears from Beau’s cheeks as Beau did the same for him.

“You’ll stay awhile, won’t you?” Beau asked, sounding hopeful and apprehensive at once. “You’re not going home right away?”

James was shaking his head before the question was finished. “I can’t go back there. I just found you.”

Beau’s grin was as warm as the fire. He rested his forehead against James’s for a moment before straightening up and reaching for the cigarettes. “All right, then. Let’s talk about the past, if you want.”

James declined the offer of a cigarette, his eyes fixed on Beau’s lovely face. It still felt odd to examine his own features on someone else, especially because it was hard to believe he looked anything like Beau. There was too much mystery in those heavy-lidded eyes, too much electricity in his smile.

“Be warned, though. History has a way of getting lost out here.” Beau plucked the glass from one of the oil lamps on the coffee table and bent down to light his cigarette on the flame.

“What do you mean?”

“Hmm.” Replacing the glass, Beau leaned back into the cushions and exhaled a slow swirl of smoke, watching it drift toward the dark ceiling beams like a shaman in contemplation. “What do I mean?”

James smiled a little, leaning an elbow on the back of the couch to listen. Beau had a charismatic way of speaking—low and melodic, with the silky cadence of a poet.

“The woods all used to be like these ones, you know,” Beau murmured. “Trees so big they had to invent ways to carry them out. Beautiful, ancient giants with thousands of years of wisdom. And the company men came and cut them down as fast as they could. Just like they cut down the Natives before that. Killed them so fast they never had a chance to say who they were.”

James was moved by the dark, tender sorrow in Beau’s words. “I’m glad these woods survived, at least. They’re incredible.”

“Yes,” Beau murmured, although there was a cynical glint in his eye. “We’ve done right by the land, I suppose, in the years since our great-great-great-great grandfather first stole it.”

“Stole it?”

“Mm-hm.” Beau leaned forward again, looking at him in a solemn, patient way. “It’s all stolen, James, the whole beautiful coast. From the Nestucca, the Siletz, the Yakina and the Alsea. All the way up to the Clatsop and all the way down to the Coos. Our ancestors forced them from their homes and stole the land they were a part of. We live among their spirits and stand upon their graves. Their descendants are all around us now, still fighting to recover what was taken. We have to understand that, James.”

James nodded slowly, regretting his own ignorance and admiring Beau’s seriousness. Remembering how the trust agreement extended certain benefits to the tribe, he wondered if there